Thoughts on Dreams, Life, and Spirit – by Anne Hill, D.Min.

I hate to say this, but…

…this may be the year when people aside from my kids get really tired of me saying “I told you so” all the time. Case in point: this blog post detailing how Toyota is worried about being perceived as an old people’s car. They have replaced Sly and the Family Stone in their ads with a band I’ve never heard of, which must mean they’ll attract that youthful demographic, right? You know, the youth who have no student loan debt, pristine credit, and jobs which pay them enough to afford a new car. Right.

I am also reading with interest the nervous reports from the Left about Barack Obama flip-flopping on the FISA bill, public election financing, and other issues. This is being written about ad nauseum in blogs the world over, so I won’t waste too much time on it. Just to be clear, I’ve got no problem with Obama being a centrist Democrat. I just had a problem with the people who insisted (and still insist) that he’s not. Now that he has been revealed as a mere mortal with an affinity for power, I hope people vote for him anyway.

That’s it for me this week. I wish I had something more interesting to post, but I guess I’m on bereavement leave for a while. I am wrung out, and not only from the extreme heat and terrible air quality around here. Hopefully I can get back to my weekly blogging schedule before too long.

On a positive note, even amidst the surreality of my father’s death I have come up with a couple potentially amusing future blog topics. Yesterday, for instance, I met a friend at the excellent Green Apple Books in SF. As I browsed through the voluminous used book bins out front, I realized that there is a whole list of rules to be generated on how to quickly weed out promising bargain books from immediate rejects. The first rule on the list: anything with “idiom” in the title is automatically thrown out. Even though it’s probably the cheapest book in there. (92¢!)

I’m averaging 48.5 MPG in my 2002 Prius. Tons per year of CO2 generated: 3. If I were driving a 2008 BMW 128i I’d be averaging 21 MPG and generating 5.8 Tons per year of C02. I think I’ll accept looking like an old fart if it means saving $$ and greenhouse gas emissions.